Australia

- 3 Eberts

This movie, set in 1939, tried to be the Australian Gone with the Wind but it fails on most levels. Like GWTW it was beautifully filmed and epic in scale. GWTW had the burning of Atlanta and Australia had the burning and bombing of Darwin.
The movies were different because the story was so much better in GWTW. The trials and tribulations of Scarlett and Rhett were portrayed so well that they carried the movie. The Civil War served as a great back drop and was well integrated into the sophisticated soap opera.
In Australia the story of Lady Ashley and Drover could not carry the movie. The story should have been interesting and dramatic, but for some reason it wasn't. The tone was more Disney-like than dramatic.
The movies were also different because GWTW, although a better movie was at heart a well done propaganda film supporting an insidious and evil world view. GWTW made in clear that the Southern way of life in the ante-bellum years was beneficial to both the slaves and the slave holders. It portrayed and supported a paternalistic view of society in a romantic way. In the context of the movie, having Big Sam volunteer to dig trenches for the South makes perfect sense. GWTW was also a movie telling the North in 1939 America, not to interfere again in the internal racial policies of the South.
Australia, on the other hand, supports a world view condemning Australia's past. Drover, who is the hero of the story, had married an Aborigine. He considers his brother-in-law to be his brother. The movie is very strong in its condemnation of Australia's policy of taking mixed race Aborigines from their homes and and trying to turn them into "proper" Australians.
Australia can be looked at as the ant-GWTW. One revels in an evil past and the other abhors it. Australia isn't half the movie GWTW is, but it is by far a more honorable and honest movie.
Roger had some problems with the movie presenting the Aboriginal people practicing and believing in magic. He said, "Luhrmann is rightly contemptuous of Australia's 're-education' policies; he shows Nullah taking pride in his heritage and paints the white enforcers as the demented racists they were. But Australia also accepts aboriginal mystical powers lock, stock and barrel, and that I think may be condescending."
I know what Roger is saying but I don't agree. The movie is about the aborigine world view and in 1939 they practiced and believed in magic. I think this aspect of the movie is presented in a powerful and beautiful way.
Another thing I found interesting in Australia was the use of another 1939 movie, The Wizard of Oz, as a plot device.
I liked Australia. I think it was a little too long and the main story wasn't presented in a dramatic enough tone. It is definitely worth seeing, even though it could have been much better. I enjoyed the ending. Nullah, like Dorothy, finds out he can go home again.